The
Baptism of Christ is a painting finished around 1475 by the
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
painter
Andrea del VerrocchioAndrea del Verrocchio, born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni, was an Italian sculptor, goldsmith and painter who worked at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence. His pupils included Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi, but he also influenced Michelangelo...
and his workshop. It is housed in the
Uffizi GalleryThe Uffizi Gallery , is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world. It's housed in the Palazzo degli Uffizi, a palazzo in Florence, Italy.-History:...
in
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
.
Commissioned by the monastery church of San Salvi in Florence, where it remained until 1530, the picture was executed in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, whose style is well defined by the figures of Christ and Baptist. The special fame of the work is due to the pupil who helped him paint it.
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The
Baptism of Christ is a painting finished around 1475 by the
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
painter
Andrea del VerrocchioAndrea del Verrocchio, born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni, was an Italian sculptor, goldsmith and painter who worked at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence. His pupils included Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi, but he also influenced Michelangelo...
and his workshop. It is housed in the
Uffizi GalleryThe Uffizi Gallery , is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world. It's housed in the Palazzo degli Uffizi, a palazzo in Florence, Italy.-History:...
in
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
.
Commissioned by the monastery church of San Salvi in Florence, where it remained until 1530, the picture was executed in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, whose style is well defined by the figures of Christ and Baptist. The special fame of the work is due to the pupil who helped him paint it. The blond angel on the left and parts of the landscape background belong to the hand of the very young
Leonardo da VinciLeonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer....
, who was in Verrocchio's workshop around 1470. Some critics ascribe the second angel to another young Florentine artist,
Sandro BotticelliAlessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli or Il Botticello was an Italian painter of the Florentine school during the Early Renaissance...
.
David Alan Brown has a detailed and most interesting treatment of the Verrochio workshop and a long discussion of this picture, representing the most recent scholarship.
The painting portrays St. John the Baptist baptizing Jesus by pouring water over his head. The extended arms of God, the golden rays, the dove with outstretched wings, and the cruciform nimbus show that Jesus is the Son of God and part of the Trinity. Two angels on the riverbank are holding Jesus' garment. The composition as a whole is attributed to Verrocchio, as master and head of the workshop, and large parts of the painting are considered his work. Leonardo's angel has excited so much special comment (and mythology), that the importance and value of the picture as a whole has been somewhat overlooked. It is one of Verrochio's brilliant masterpieces.